We now have a launch date for SIDEWISE on Zuda Comics, and that date is Thursday, October 8th! Please be sure to bookmark the SIDEWISE page and add it to your favorites. Trust me: you are not going to want to miss the launch of this exciting story!

All-Ages Does Not Equal Kids Only

I’m really going to need your help spreading the word. I like to think of SIDEWISE as the little all-ages webcomic that could, and if you are familiar with Zuda’s ongoing content then you are keenly aware that SIDEWISE is the first all-ages project to win the monthly competition. I think this is indicative of the current sentiment regarding all-ages stories: They’re only for kids.

I’m not sure when there was a paradigm shift in comic books, but when I was growing up, parents didn’t think twice about sharing their comics with their children. After all, you would never find inappropriate language, innuendo, partial nudity or ultra-violence in a comic book. It just wasn’t necessary to tell a good, entertaining story. Our comics were super cool and we loved them–oblivious of the fact that they were all-ages comics. We read them because the stories captured our imaginations and we lived a super-powered life vicariously through characters who could fly, leap buildings in a single bound and run faster than a locomotive.

Kid-Friendly = Kiss of Death

“Kid-Friendly” is a stupid phrase. My 13-year-old told me so. He doesn’t want to read a kid-friendly book, he wants to read what I’m reading. So I create stories like SIDEWISE, Edgar Allan Poo and Kid Houdini. My sons–like all kids out there–don’t want you to dumb down the story, and they certainly don’t want to read a book that says “kid-friendly” on the cover. Book series like Harry Potter, Twilight and Pendragon have proven that you don’t need to speak down to young readers and young adults. Believe it or not, they can handle thick novels and the comic books you read. They just don’t need all the aforementioned non-story-essential “adult” elements. So why can’t all-ages be smart, engaging, action-packed and accessible to all readers and still be cool?

Sidewise = Cool

My goal for SIDEWISE is simple: to create a smart, engaging, action-packed historical fiction story that will appeal to readers of all ages… and still be cool. And if you believe a story needs adult language, ultra-violence, innuendo and partial nudity to be cool, I feel sorry for you. You’re going to miss a heckuva story. A heckuva cool story.